


Alair

by Orithain



Series: Fourth Pass [16]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Alternate Fourth Pass, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 11:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9322403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orithain/pseuds/Orithain
Summary: Character study





	

**Author's Note:**

> For a while I wanted to do some short character pieces to let folks get to know the people of our Pern. Some will be set in the present, some in the recent past especially during and immediately after the plague. Some will be about characters who've already had stories posted while others will appear for the first time since we were still working on their stories.  
> Originally posted November 2002.

~ Mid to late 4P09 ~

Alair knelt on the cold ground, his shoulders bowed, and wept. The skies should have wept along with him, so great was his pain, but the sun stubbornly persisted in shining, the day perfect for lazing about and having fun. Or it would have been had all of Avylon not been mourning their dead.

He knelt beside the tiny marker that indicated where his infant son, one of the first victims of the plague, was buried. He didn’t even have that much for his wife; by the time she had died, a mere few days afterward, people had been dying in droves and were being burned in mass pyres.

So he laid two flowers on little Erien’s grave, one for the baby and one for Caryn. She’d been so beautiful, sought after by many, and he’d barely been able to believe his luck when she’d smilingly agreed to his stammered proposal. He’d been nothing more than the son of a holder of a minor hold, even if he was his father’s heir, and she... she’d been _Lady_ Caryn, youngest and much loved daughter of the lord holder of Snowy Peaks. Yet from the moment they’d met, they’d known they were meant for each other. And much to his shock, her parents had approved the match, and he’d found himself the son of a lord holder and a queenrider.

That only increased his loss, for both of Caryn’s parents had succumbed to the plague as well. Although there was not a family or hold in all of Avylon untouched by the fatal illness, the Weyr and Snowy Peaks had been among the hardest hit, perhaps because of their isolation.

Sitting atop the grave of his only child, Alair counted his dead, starting with his son and ending with his father, one of the last to die. He didn’t know how he could go on, but he had to; the hold needed him.

Squaring his shoulders, Alair resolutely turned his back on the past and strode back to the hold, ready to take up his duties. Alone.


End file.
